


5 times Percival Graves scared the shit out of people + 1 time he scared the shit out of Newt

by zuzallove



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Explicit Language, Fluff, Gramander, Grindeldore, Humour, M/M, Mother Hen Newt Scamander, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 14:06:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18251369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuzallove/pseuds/zuzallove
Summary: “What happened to you?” Newt whispers before he can think better. Tact was never his strong suit.Graves doesn’t seem to be annoyed, merely tired. “Grindelwald happened to me.”Or, more simply, just 5 times Percival Graves scared the shit out of people + 1 time he scared the shit out of Newt.





	5 times Percival Graves scared the shit out of people + 1 time he scared the shit out of Newt

**Author's Note:**

> Translations at the bottom.

1

 

 

“Cet idiot d'anglais est complément ivre. Ils tiennent vraiment pas l'alcool.”

"Autre chose que de la bibine et ils sont bourrés comme des coins."

Newt doesn’t even raise his head. His French usually brings him no further than a request for fresh bread, but it’s kind of hard to miss the condescending tone and the not-so-subtle glares the snobby waiters keep sending his way.

To be honest, he feels entitled to get thoroughly pissed. As he mentally starts to list out reasons why, he finds himself starting to panic and decides to stop and drink up instead.

_Oh God. Leeta is dead._

_Grindelwald is at large._

_Queenie._

How on earth is he supposed to deal with this? Without Tina and Jacob, no less? Without his brother?

He let Theseus go back to England without protesting, knowing that he has to be the one to talk to Leeta’s friends and the broken shambles of her family. Letting Tina and Jacob go back the United States, however, turned into a pretty pathetic showing of clinginess and despair.

Still. It was the right thing to do. Jacob didn’t belong in the wizarding world, and Tina needed to check in with HQ and possibly try to convince MACUSA to collaborate on an international scale.

_Good luck with that._

So, all things considered, Newt feels as if his only choice is to drink alone. It could have been worse, actually. At least his profound loss of dignity will go unseen by the people he cares about. In his pocket, Pickett wiggles for attention, and while Newt throws him some of the lice he always keeps in the other pocket, he doesn’t bring him out. He’s not in the mood to cast Confundus. He’s not in the mood to cast anything.

He hasn’t even noticed a new customer has entered the French bar adjacent to the Ministry until he sees the – well, terrified – expression on the snobby waiter’s face. Newt glances discreetly to his right, but all he glimpses are black robes and a hat. He already likes this stranger. For whatever reason, the waiter is scared of them and the waiter is kind of an arse.  

“Drinking your sorrows, Mr Scamander?”

Newt’s head makes a whiplash to the right. He knows that voice. That voice makes him automatically reach for his wand, tucked inside his sleeve, before he thinks better.

“Mr Graves?” he gasps.

He is Mr Graves. The real one, Newt hopes, stifling the urge to cast a Revelio from under the counter. It has to be him, because he’s fairly sure not even Grindelwald would be so rash as to impersonate this man yet again, and to allow himself to be found so soon after the Lestrange crypt ordeal.

“The one and only,” the man to his right sighs. Newt recognises his salt and pepper hair, his straight nose, the intelligence behind one impossibly dark eye. One. Because the rest of Graves is almost unrecognisable.

“What happened to you?” Newt whispers before he can think better. Tact was never his strong suit.

Graves doesn’t seem to be annoyed, merely tired. “Grindelwald happened to me.”

Some things are evident – his missing eye, sewn shut by a mess of scar tissue that goes from his forehead to the beginning of one sharp cheekbone – the jagged scars over his nose and left cheek, the lips not quite right, as if a piece had been missing and the Healers had done their best to grow it back. His upper lip, Newt realised. His upper lip is different.

Other things are not so obvious, but still visible to Newt’s trained eye (although he usually looks for injuries in creatures and creatures only). Graves sits kind of awkwardly, trying to shift all of his weight to the left side of his body. His posture is elegant and straight, but it’s also tense, as if he’s masking a necessity to slump forward. One of his hands is clutching a walking cane shaped like a Wampus’ head. His fingers are all crooked.

“Are you quite done cataloguing my injuries?”

Newt snaps his eyes back to Graves’ stern expression, red-faced, and then promptly lowers them again, unable to withstand that direct a contact.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles from under his fringe. “I had no idea it was this bad.”

Graves is looking a bit annoyed, now.

“Could have been worse,” he grumbles. “Whisky,” he then says to the waiter, who immediately runs off to get him his order, white-faced, Newt notices with pleasure.

He can’t say he blames him, though. Graves looks… well, not scary. Not to Newt. But his already imposing figure is definitely more intimidating now.

“You don’t need to look so scared, you know,” Graves mutters to Newt, not even looking towards him as he downs the glass of whisky in one go. The waiter diplomatically decides to leave the bottle next to him and then scutters off, probably to breathe into a bag somewhere.

“I’m not scared,” Newt answers, frowning. “I’m just sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry people like Grindelwald exist, I suppose.”

Graves turn to look at him. His expression is utterly unreadable, but Newt feels scrutinised. Probably looking for insincerity.

Apparently satisfied that Newt is not lying, Graves shrugs – a tiny, aborted movement – and gets back to his entire bottle of whisky.

“I heard what happened here,” Graves explains. “And I came as soon as I could. I was a fool for not believing the rumours that he was in Europe again. I’ve been chasing him for months in Uruguay.”

“Uruguay?”

“That’s where my source placed him.”

Newt is confused. “I thought MACUSA wasn’t lending any help to the Grindelwald chase. Tina – I mean, Auror Goldstein – went back thinking she was probably going to get sacked.”

Graves smiles, but it’s more like a grin. It makes him look older, somehow.

“You think I still work for MACUSA?”

“You resigned?” Newt gasped. He had no idea. Tina never said a thing. He had heard they had found Graves, but nothing else. He had just assumed he had been reinstated to his old position.

“I don’t know. Can you call it resigning when you wake up in hospital and call them all fuckers and then insult the Madam President by calling her a moron and a glorified pen-pusher?”

Newt gulps. “That’ll do the trick. But why….”

“Do you really think,” Graves interrupts, turning an exasperated expression towards him, “that I would still work for the same organisation that not only did not realise I had been abducted for six months, but that also forbade us all to participate in the Grindelwald hunt? After his escape had been made possible by no other than a MACUSA employee?”

“Well, everything sounds obvious when you say it in that tone,” Newt mumbles, sipping his whisky for a lack of anything else to do. “I hadn’t thought about it like that. Not that I was a huge fan of MACUSA to begin with, honestly.”

Graves remains deadly serious, looking at Newt as if he has two heads instead of one.

“MACUSA is drowning in politics,” he continues, ignoring Newt’s attempt at lightening the mood. “It’s a broken institution that has long lost sight of the purpose it was originally conceived for.”

“Right,” Newt nods, trying to be agreeable. “If you want my opinion, all Ministries are kind of the same.”

Graves nods, and Newt decides to take that as a good sign.

“I’m not here by chance,” Graves murmurs, fishing a note from his left pocket. “Once I finally arrived in Paris, I investigated what happened with Grindelwald. The French Ministry of Magic was nothing short of uncooperative, but I’ve managed to talk to a few witnesses, and they all said one word: Scamander.”

Newt raises his eyebrows. Why would the witnesses point towards him? His brother, maybe, who was now going to lead the British Ministry hunt for Grindelwald. But Newt… Most times, Newt just felt like a particularly unlucky bystander. He got sucked into these situations and had no idea what was happening.

“Why would they name me?”

“I don’t know. They seemed to be under the impression that you had a bone to pick with Grindelwald. And by that, I mean revenge.”

Newt hangs his head even lower. A huge part of him wants to be the one to finally catch Grindelwald and make him suffer for what he’s done. He wants to see him beg for mercy. For his life.

But, on the other hand…

“I’m not a very vindictive person,” he murmurs, avoiding eye-contact again.

“I honestly don’t give a fuck,” Graves snaps crudely, shocking Newt into meeting his eyes again. Graves looks furious, glowing with anger. “If you have something personal against that son of a bitch, get in line. You wouldn’t be the first one. But I don’t care what you want to do with him. Leave that part to me. For now, I gather that you want him caught. And that you are… surprisingly resourceful, let’s say. For starters, you were in the right place, and I wasn’t.”

Newt listens to him, transfixed, and wonders if he’s interpreting this right.

“So, you’re saying that…”

“I’m saying,” Graves interrupts again. The British part of Newt internally protests at his rudeness. “That I’ve dedicated what remains of my abilities and my mind to locating and imprisoning the bastard. Possibly give him a few souvenirs from my wand as well,” Graves growls. Newt shivers. “Do you want to help me do it?”

Newt is flabbergasted. He’s going to look for Grindelwald, that’s obvious. But is Graves really his best choice of ally?

He seems too bitter and revenge-fuelled to be objective about this, and Newt is not a violent person. He doesn’t want to get his hands bloody, because he knows, eventually, he would regret it.

But if he has a chance of getting him, and he manages to stop Graves from beating him to a pulp, then…

“I’ll be pleased to collaborate with you, Mr Graves.”

They shake hands, sealing the deal. Graves’ hand is a web of scars.

 

 

2

 

Percival Graves was a terribly efficient man.

Two weeks into the chase, and Newt still can’t believe the sheer amount of progress they’ve made. Newt’s table, once covered with pamphlets about creatures and, well, baby Nifflers, is now scattered with papers. All sorts of papers: possible sightings, theories, analyses of Grindelwald’s duelling techniques, and even hypotheses on how to disarm him and imprison him. Graves woke up every morning at 7AM sharp, emerging from Newt’s spare bedroom already dressed, hair combed back, and immediately set out to work. If Newt didn’t set in front of him a cup of tea and a piece of toast, he was pretty sure the man would skip breakfast entirely.

A distracted “Ah, thank you,” is all the praise he receives for remembering food exists. Which, given that it is him, he thinks is a bit meagre. Newt himself hardly remembers to eat most of the time.

But Graves… there’s something about him that makes sure Newt’s mother-henning instincts – usually reserved for his creatures – have a field day. The man barely sleeps, he barely eats, and when he thinks Newt is not looking, it becomes obvious that he’s in pain. Both physically and mentally.

“Are you sure you don’t want a Pain Solution?” he asks for the millionth time. Graves doesn’t even regard him from his deep scrutiny of last week’s Prophet.

“Those things are addictive,” he mutters.

“Only if you abuse them.”

It’s a lost cause. Graves won’t take anything. _Maybe he likes pain_ , Newt thinks.

He has acquired a lore more information on him ever since they’ve been in London, but it’s only ever given distractedly, as if he’s not consciously divulging personal facts.

“This is the same curse that killed my Father.”

“This is one of his associates. He was a fellow Wampus in Ilvermorny.”

“Scamander, that is no way to cook beef.”

Of all things, the strangest one was the beef. Because Newt just couldn’t reconcile the fact that this strange man, obsessed with revenge, scarred beyond recognition, painfully stoic and sever could have such strong opinions on meat rareness.

“That is not rare,” Newt scrunches up his nose. Today they’re having steak, and Graves’ one is literally dripping blood, after forcefully taking it out of the pan. “That’s just raw meat.”

“Yes, well, I like my cow still mooing,” Graves shoots back, looking at Newt’s well-done steak as if it has personally offended him.

“I generally don’t eat meat,” Newt replies in a conversational tone. “It makes me feel guilty, but every now and then I get cravings.”

Graves blinks. “What do you eat if you don’t eat meat?”

Newt laughs out loud. “There’s plenty of things to eat other than meat!”

Graves looks around, pointedly stopping his glance at the fridge – which he knew to be in a constant state of emptiness – and at the pantry – stocked to the brim, but with creature food – and at the fruit bowl, where a single, solitary apple sat, quietly rotting for the past few days.

“Point taken,” Newt shrugs. “I generally eat what Bunty brings me. It’s mostly vegetable sandwiches and a few apples.”

“Doesn’t sound healthy.”

“Yes, well.” Neither is being consumed by your personal vendettas, Newt wants to reply. Instead, he lets the silence fall as they chew their steaks.

Other than his utter contempt towards Newt’s cooking skills, Graves is an easy guest to have. He wakes up. He works. He goes to bed. He often does the dishes – tells the dishes to go wash themselves with a lazy flick of his wrist – and on the few occasions Newt has gone into his room to tidy it up he always found the bed made, the room in pristine conditions and his clothes neatly folded on a chair. Inhuman.

“I think tomorrow we should go interview this man. I’m told he might have information on… Hey!”

Newt snaps his head up, just in time to see the Niffler release his grip on Graves’ wrist – his watch – and fall on the table, briefly shaking his head to recover from hitting the wood.

“You…!” Newt begins, standing up abruptly and reaching for the little devil.

“Stop,” Graves said, raising a hand. “Let me.”

He grabs the Niffler by his scuffle and looks at him dead in the eyes.

“This,” he growls, flashing the watch in front of him. For a second, the Niffler’s eyes go hazy with gold-lust. “Mine. Not. Yours.”

And then Newt is treated to a sight he never thought he might see. The Niffler starts to tremble a bit and, after holding Graves’ gaze for a second, he drops his eyes.

The Niffler is scared of Graves.

“What the…”

“This,” Graves continues, ignoring Newt. “Yours.” And, amazingly, he takes a golden coin from his pocket and gives it to the creature. The Niffler looks at it like he can’t believe it, and then snatches it up and stuffs it into his pouch.

“They like things better when they’re given to them…”

“Freely,” Graves concludes for him, nodding. “I know.”

The Niffler, from that day onward, is not scared of Graves. Well, he is a bit scared, but mostly, he… respects him. Even listens to him sometimes, good Merlin.

Newt is jealous. And impressed.

 

 

3

 

As their tentative collaboration goes on, Newt begins to despair that he’ll be able to stop Graves from using Grindelwald as target practice for his wand.

Because Graves… Graves is just so angry all the time.

“I don’t need you to babysit me,” he snaps at Newt while they walk down – limp, in Graves’ case – an alley in Berlin. “It was going perfectly.”

“You don’t need to torture them to get information,” Newt repeats for what feels like… oh, no, wait, he counted them. It’s been said sixty-two times. “They can be persuaded.”

Graves sniggers. “I was persuading them. Forcefully.”

“Gently,” Newt hisses. “You can gently persuade them to tell us what we need to know.”

“You haven’t been an Auror for more than twenty years…”

“Well, you’ve also been a prick for the same amount of time and you don’t hear me complain!”

Graves slows down for a minute, just to frown better at Newt, who stares at his furrowed eyebrows and wonders if Graves has ever gone more than five minutes without frowning. He concludes that he probably hasn’t.

“That didn’t make any sense,” Graves points out, shifting his weight from one injured left foot to a just as severely injured right leg. Standing still is hard for him, Newt knows by now.

“You don’t make any sense,” is the only answer Newt can think of. He meets his eyes, raising his chin in defiance. Being right is mostly a matter of confidence.

“I don’t make any s…? Scamander, are you drunk?”

“No, I’m just fed up.”

Graves sets his jaw, his eyes getting even darker.

“If you want to get out of this little arrangement, I’m sure I can manage without you.”

Newt scoffs, just as Graves starts walking again. He purposely tries to maintain a slow pace, so that he doesn’t force Graves to struggle to keep up, but today Graves is marching forward like a soldier. It only takes them a minute to reach the main road again.

“And then who’ll stop you from committing gruesome murders?”

This, finally, makes Graves snap.

“You think I’m a murderer?” he yells, and Newt immediately takes a step back. “I’ve been an officer of the law for twenty years, Scamander. My bloodline has been on the side of the law for generations. Don’t presume to know me after two months of…”

“I don’t think you’re a murderer, but, I don’t know, maybe you could revisit some of your methods? I mean, what’s the point if they faint?”

“They faint because they’re guilty,” Graves snarls. “And don’t tell me your methods are efficient in any way…”

“Entschuldigung…”

“Was?!” Graves shouts, turning to look at – well, she’s a terrified apples salesgirl, apparently.

Her eyes go as wide as saucers, and she stutters as she says something unintelligible about her bags of apples.

“"I-Ich verkaufe Äpfel.”

Graves visibly relaxes, immediately fishing for change in his pockets. They only have a little German currency, so Newt contributes with what he has as well. The girl is no less frightened, and it shows, as her trembling hand reluctantly accepts their summed efforts.

“Danke.” Newt understands that at the very least.

“Bitte,” he tries to add, but it kind of sounds like “Bitter” and Graves rolls his eyes.

“Sei vorsichtig,” Graves adds in inexplicably fluent German. Newt is annoyed.  

They spend the rest of the way to the hotel discussing how only German people usually know German, and while Newt has to hear yet again how “German is a beautiful language, and one of my nannies was German” he kind of remembers that, well, the previous argument had been entirely forgotten.

 

 

 

 

4

 

 

“Expelliarmus!”

Grindelwald turnes to look at them – Dumbledore, Graves and Newt – with an amused smile on his face. His eyes rapidly scan Albus, taking him in almost avidly, and Newt can’t help but wonder how many years it’s been since they saw each other.

“Gellert, you’re wandless. Give up,” Dumbledore calmly states, as if he’s talking about the weather. He looks poised, ready for anything, but Newt can tell from the slight trembling of his wand hand that he’s nervous. Apparently, so does Grindelwald.

“Tut-tut, Albus,” he drawls in his slightly accented voice, still refusing to acknowledge everyone else’s presence, all his senses focused on Dumbledore. “You should know that’s never stopped me before.”

Newt knows, too. They all know. A wandless Grindelwald is just as dangerous as an armed one. But they’ve promised Dumbledore they would let him try to bring him in peacefully – at least, Newt has promised; Graves has refused to do so, and is currently as tense as a broomstick, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Newt discreetly keeps an eye on him.

“True,” Dumbledore is answering. “But I also know that you’re a proficient mathematician, and that you can calculate that the odds are against you.”

“Odds! When have odds ever been against me?”

Newt is trying to listen, truly, but it’s hard to ignore that Graves is emitting a low growl like an animal, and that the tip of his shiny black wand is sending out small electrical sparks.

“…And I see you’ve brought not just one pet, but two,” Grindelwald continues, leaving Newt in the dark about what’s been said before. He finally takes in the two other men, his eyes flashing briefly with annoyance as they go over Newt, and then stops at Graves.

“Graves,” he says, and his tone changes completely. It goes all flat, devoid of intonation. It takes Newt a second to realise, but he’s dropped that insufferable smirk, too.

“Hi, Grindelwald,” Graves snarls, finally acknowledged. “Remember me?”

Grindelwald quietly looks over Graves’ appearance. He remains perfectly still. It’s much scarier than his usual dramatics.

“You weren’t supposed to survive,” Grindelwald finally comments. “I made sure of that.”

“You didn’t take one thing into consideration. You’re not the only wizard who can perform wandless magic.”

Newt knows the story. Graves told him on a particularly cold night, when they shared half a bottle of Firewhisky to get warmed up. Left for dead, his heart barely beating, Graves had managed to use the last of his strength – carefully reserved for that precise moment – to get rid of his bonds and perform a basic healing spell on himself. Then he forced himself to stand, despite his multiple broken bones, and for the first and last time of his life, cast a Patronus, which he then sent to MACUSA, asking for help. The effort almost killed him, and put him in a coma for seven months. He was so drained from casting it that he never even saw what shape it took.

After the story, Newt silently watched as Graves limped towards his room, barely saying good night to Newt. He watched, and thought to himself, this man has been through hell and back and here he still stands. The only time he’d seen such fortitude had been with his creatures. That was the beginning of Newt’s… confusing feelings. For him. For Percival. For Graves.

“I was well aware of your many talents,” Grindelwald replies, clearly annoyed. “I couldn’t impersonate just anyone, you know. It had to be the most powerful man at MACUSA.”

“It’s no use trying to talk your way out of this,” Graves crouches into an offensive position. “This time, I’m the one giving you a souvenir.”

Grindelwald barely reacts. “Indeed,” he mutters. Then he turns to Dumbledore again. “Is this the sort of man you like to consort with these days, Albus?”

“Gellert, please. It’s not too late, you know.”

For some reason, that’s what makes Grindelwald snap, his eyes turn cold and dark again.

“You know for a fact it is, Albus.”

Newt is confused by the exchange, but he can sense that something’s about to happen. Unfortunately, they’re all too slow. Grindelwald snaps his fingers and, less than a second later, there’s a screech and a flash of something red. Grindelwald grabs the tail of the… phoenix? Newt can’t believe his own eyes. A phoenix! A real, live phoenix!  

But it’s already too late, and that second of hesitation has been their undoing. The last thing Newt sees, almost by accident, is the look Grindelwald sends Graves’ way before disappearing with the Phoenix.

He can’t be sure he interprets it correctly, because Grindelwald is the most unreadable man he’s ever met – Dumbledore included – but that kind of look… well, he knows. He’s seen it in countless creatures, and he sees it almost every day in the mirror when he looks at himself.

Grindelwald is afraid.

He’s afraid of Graves.

 

 

5

 

“I regret lying to you. Both of you.” Dumbledore turns to look at Graves, who is leaning against the doorframe, silent. Deadly silent. Like he has been for the entire duration of this conversation with Dumbledore.

“Why did you?” Newt asks, and it’s barely a whisper. He doesn’t know what to think right now.

Dumbledore smiles, a sad little thing, and lowers his eyes.

“I was young when Gellert and I fell in…” Graves shifts. Dumbledore follows him with his eyes, and promptly changes his answer. “When we met,” he concludes. “I felt, for the first time in my life, that someone understood me. I did some very stupid things because of it.”

“But if Grindelwald still loves you, maybe we can…”

“Newt, no,” Dumbledore stops him, raising a hand. “Please, you have to understand. This isn’t normal devotion we’re talking about. There’s no appealing to Gellert…”

“Don’t call him that,” Graves growls from his dark corner. Dumbledore presses his lips into a thin line.

“There’s no appealing to Grindelwald using love as a motivator,” he continues. “Trust me, I’ve tried. But in his twisted reasoning, he thinks the only way we can, well, be together, is if he completes his plan.”

“It doesn’t make any sense!” Newt protests, standing up and starting to pace.

It’s hard for him to imagine Dumbledore young, and in love, and it’s even harder to imagine him being in love right now, and with Grindelwald, no less.

“So… you’re a man. Who likes other… men.”

Dumbledore blinks. “That is correct.”

Newt tries to wrap his head around it. He doesn’t want to, but he can’t stop the tiny flicker of hope that suddenly comes to life within him. _I’m not alone_.

“It’s illegal in the Muggle world.”

Dumbledore nods, as if that’s a valid point. “It’s not illegal in the wizarding world, fortunately.”

True, that’s true, Newt thinks, shaking his head. It’s just kind of frowned upon. Still, he knows several same-sex couples, even though they keep it not quite hidden, but it’s not overt either.

This is so confusing for him. He’s never liked anyone before. And Dumbledore is in love with Grindelwald. What are they supposed to do now?

“We can use this to our advantage,” Graves finally intervenes, stepping out of the shadows and grabbing a chair at Newt’s kitchen table. He masks it well, but Newt knows it is mostly because he was in too much pain from standing for so long.

“No, no,” Dumbledore cuts him off. “Grindelwald won’t let you. Trust me, this is best left alone, you have no idea how he might react if you…”

“Trust you?” Graves looks calm, but he’s clearly simmering. “Excuse me, did I hear you right? Did the man that offered to help us in our chase, but lied and kept secret a most relevant detail that could have helped us catch him months ago just asked me to trust him?”

Dumbledore deflates. “I know how this sounds,” he justifies himself. “I know I should have told you sooner, but we’re talking about one of my biggest regrets in life.”

“Cry me a river,” Graves growls, all pretence of calm abandoned. “If I find Grindelwald, and I see a way to use what you’ve just told us, you can bet your best robes that I will use it to my advantage.”

Dumbledore doesn’t reply, staring at his conjoined hands, but Newt is under the impression that his eyes are… wide? Could Dumbledore be afraid of Graves? Dumbledore, the only man other than Newt that Newt believed to be immune to Graves'… charms?

“I can’t let you do that,” Dumbledore murmurs and yes. He’s definitely scared. But when he raises his eyes and meets Graves’, he knows why. “There’s always a better way.”

Dumbledore is not scared for himself. He’s scared of what Graves might do to Grindelwald. He’s scared Graves will hurt him.

And Newt is right in the middle.

 

 

 

\+ 1

 

 

 

Newt can hear the explosions coming from the other side of the farmhouse. He still can’t believe that of all the places the final rendezvous could have happened at, Grindelwald chose this farmhouse near Godric’s Hollow. It defies any logic. But here they are.

He’s left Dumbledore there, after being reassured by the man that Grindelwald wasn’t going to get away this time. Anyway, he has another matter to attend to right now.

“Breathe, for the love of Merlin, you stupid man, breathe…”

Graves is down and has been down for at least twenty minutes now. Newt had to abandon him to go and stall Grindelwald as they waited for Dumbledore to make his appearance. It worked. But now Percival isn’t breathing, and _fuck_.

“Come on, Percival. Come on. You’ve survived worse than this.”

Percival doesn’t answer. Newt abandons his wand and starts compressions on his chest.

“What the hell did he do to you? Come on, Percival, come on…”

The explosions get even louder. From a distance, Newt can see a bank of dark clouds gathering around the area where they’re duelling. He wonders who’s winning.

“Percival, come on, we need to talk, we’ve needed to talk for a long time now… breathe, you stupid arsehole!”

Newt doesn’t know how much time passes, but the explosions are dwindling down. He can hear himself think again, and just as he’s starting to cry, hyperventilate and give up all at once, he sees it. The tell-tale sign he’s been looking for. A small, purplish line directly under Percival’s Adam apple.

“Yes,” he says, because he now knows what it is. A Strangling Curse. Percival’s throat has been slowly closing up. He grabs his wand again, getting ready to perform the countercourse. He’s never done it before in his life, and he’s not sure he can.

At the eighth attempt, the mark starts to fade. Newt’s breath sympathetically catches in his throat.

“Percival!”

With a loud gasp, Percival comes back to life, and Newt can’t hold it back anymore. The last three years have been a nightmare. The man he loves almost died. The man he almost considers as a father figure is fighting for his life on the other side of a barn. He lets go. He cries.

“I can’t believe you did this to me,” he’s crying, ignoring Percival’s wild eyes and struggles to breathe. “After everything we’ve been through, we had an agreement. Let Dumbledore duel him. You promised.”

Percival hesitantly lifts a hand, and touches Newt’s tears with his fingertips.

“You’re scared,” Percival says, and it looks like the mere thought of Newt being scared fills him with horror.

“Of course I’m scared, arsehole,” Newt cries indignantly, brushing the tears off in an angry gesture. “I’m terrified!”

“You can’t be scared,” Graves continues, ignoring Newt’s protests and keeping his hand steadfastly on Newt’s face, almost caressing him. “You just… can’t. I’m used to seeing fear in everyone else’s eyes, I don’t care, but you… this is the first time I’ve seen you afraid.”

“I’m always scared,” Newt explains, finally understanding what he means. “But I’m scared for you. Not of you.”

It’s not fast and desperate. Graves gives him all the time in the world to turn his face, to avoid the kiss, to run and hide as far as possible, but Newt’s knees resolutely stay planted at his side. He doesn’t move an inch. He doesn’t even breathe for fear of ruining the moment.

He lets Percival kiss him. He will never, ever let him know that this is the first time in his life that Newt gets kissed by someone he really, really wants to be kissed by.

 “Newt, I’m sorry, I…”

“Why did you stop?”

Graves furrows his eyebrows. Merlin, Newt loves him.

“You didn’t kiss back.”

“I didn’t… try again, okay?”

Newt still doesn’t kiss back. Graves sighs on his mouth and pulls back again.

“Newt…”

“I don’t know what to do.”

Realisation slowly dawns on Percival’s face. He smiles, and Merlin, that’s the first real smile Newt has ever seen on his face, and it’s kind of blinding. He smiles back, as a reflex, and lowers his arms to the ground, because he’s feeling faint. Graves strokes his face.

“Do you want this?”

“Yes.”

“Even though I’m basically a cripple and a has-been, who’s much older than you and who’s kind of broken?”

Now Newt is getting angry.

“How dare you call yourself that. How dare you question your…”

“Newt.”

“Yes?”

“Do you?”

Newt nods with all his strength, ignoring the rain that has just started to fall heavily on them.

“Yes.”

“Then just… do what feels good.”

When he feels Percival’s lips on him again, he’s ready. He tries to mimic his movements, opening up his lips slightly, letting Percival catch his upper lip between his. He lets their mouths slide together, and it’s too wet – oh, yes, the rain – but Newt hopes Graves won’t be deterred. He feels a raindrop slide on the side of his mouth and instinctively darts out his tongue to catch it. That, however, changes things completely, because Graves feels Newt’s tongue flicker against his lips, and so he opens his mouth and two seconds later Newt is moaning, a desperate, wrenched out sound he’s never heard before. Graves hums, deep in his throat, and when they emerge for air Newt is resembling the plumage of a phoenix.

“That felt good,” is the only thing that comes to his mind. Graves laughs and looks at him like he wants to keep him. He looks twenty years younger like this.

“Help me up,” Graves tells him. When they’re both standing, smiling at each other and sending furtive glances towards each other’s lips, it finally dawns on them.

“Dumbledore,” Graves says, his tone dark again, turning towards the barn. They haven’t heard any explosions in a long time, Newt thinks. As they slowly walk around the barn, making their way through the mud, Newt takes Percival’s hand in his for strength. Either they find that Grindelwald has been captured, or they find Dumbledore lying – maybe dead – on the ground and Grindelwald on the run again. He almost can’t bear to look, but Percival’s presence gives him comfort and after a squeeze of his hand, he finds the courage to finally turn the corner and see what the situation is.

He almost wishes he didn’t.

Grindelwald and Dumbledore are in a crater of their own making, the trees and tool shed around them burnt and still slightly smoking, despite the rain. At the bottom of the crater, in a midst of smaller pits and indentations, are the two men. Dumbledore is covered in mud and rainwater, crumpled to the ground. Grindelwald – clearly defeated, wounded, bound and wandless – is right on top of him, in his arms, head in his lap.

From this distance, and under this rain, they shouldn’t even be able to hear what they’re saying, but for some reason the wind carries their voices quite well.

“I told you it was too late, Albus.”

They can’t see Dumbledore’s face, but from the slight shaking of his shoulders, Newt suspects he might be crying. This is a terrible invasion of their privacy, but they need to be there in case Grindelwald tries something. They have to hear this.

“I never thought this was the only way it could end, Gellert.”

“Because you’re a hopeless romantic as well as an idealist,” Grindelwald replies, coughing slightly into Dumbledore’s shirt. It stains red. Newt distractedly notices that Grindelwald’s defeated voice is much more heavily accented. “This is the perfect place, though. Our first kiss.”

“I just hoped,” Dumbledore insists, probably choosing not to address the last thing Grindelwald said. And yes, there’s no mistaking that voice. He is crying. “I never stopped hoping, not for a second.”

“I did,” Grindelwald rasps. “Perhaps… perhaps that is why I lost.”

“You lost because you hesitated, Gellert.”

A second of silence.

“Ah, well, I assume I’ll pay for that mistake. Dearly.”

Dumbledore doesn’t reply, burying his face in Grindelwald’s chest and just breathing. Newt can’t help it: his heart constricts at the sight. He never thought Dumbledore could be so… human.

“I did have the best intentions, you know,” Grindelwald starts again, slightly caressing Dumbledore’s back with his bound hands. “I swear to you.”

“I know,” Dumbledore raises his head and meets Grindelwald’s eyes with a fierce look. “I know.”

“Do you have any regrets, Albus?”

“Do you?”

Silence again.

“I regret nothing. And everything.”

They kiss. It’s a painful sight, and Newt averts his eyes. By his side, Percival grimaces and looks away as well, squeezing his hand. Newt searches out his eyes, and finds them ready and accepting.

He wants to cry out of relief. Percival won’t hurt Grindelwald any further.

Even. the most vicious and carefully planned-out vendettas crumble in front of two pitiful men kissing in the mud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonus:

 

 

Five months later, Graves, feeling happier than he’s ever felt and finally confident enough, casts a Patronus in front of Newt.

It’s a Niffler.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations: 
> 
> Cet idiot d'anglais est complément ivre. Ils tiennent vraiment pas l'alcool: This silly Englishman is getting sloshed. They really can’t hold their liquor.  
> Autre chose que de la bibine et ils sont bourrés comme des coins: Anything other than cheap ale and they fall off stools
> 
>  
> 
> Entschuldigung: Excuse me  
> Was: What  
> Ich verkaufe Äpfel: I’m selling apples  
> Danke: Thank you  
> Bitte: Here you go  
> Sei vorsichtig: Be safe.
> 
>  
> 
> As usual: I'm Italian, and this is unbetaed, so I apologise for any mistakes!  
> This has been my go-to fantasy before going to bed for a month or so, so I decided to write it. Man, it's sad how Gramander has lost momentum. It's such an amazing ship, with so much potential. Oh, and I'm sorry for what I did to Graves, but, well, I can't resist a hardened character who's been through hell.  
> And I'm sorry for the ending, but there's no way I can give Gellert and Albus a fairytale ending, it just wouldn't fit! But in my mind, eventually, Gellert does redeem himself and wins back his freedom. I'm a hopeless romantic and I go by the books more than the movies.  
> There's a quote from Modern Family in there and one from the Emperor's New Groove, because I can't help mixing genres every single time. I tried to write Angst. This is what came out.  
> Thank you if you've read this, and please, don't be shy with kudos or comments! 
> 
> Zuz


End file.
